Leaks, leaks and more leaks. That’s the word of the week in the Android world over the past seven days. This one-time run of week 42 of 2013 has hosted Nexus 5 leaks on the Google Play store, giving us a glimpse of the design and pricing of the device. We’ve also had a sneak peek at the future of SMS in Android post-KitKat and an unofficial glimpse at a redesigned Google Play Store for Android. Let’s jump in and take a look!(more…)

Whether you’re a small business owner or you manage a huge corporation, whether you’re planning a short trip or a move to another country, or even if you just live in a country that imports most of its goods from the EU or the USA, you probably keep a close eye on the currency rates and conversions.

Take me for example, I own and manage a pharmacy in Lebanon, where we import most of our brand name drugs from the EU. Prices are appointed by the Ministry of Health and changed once the currency rates of their originating countries rise or fall by about 3 to 4%. This part of our work is an exercise in frustration, because if we stock on too much of a drug from France for example, and the Euro declines by 3-4%, the Ministry will lower the drug’s price accordingly and we’ll end up losing a part of our profit margin.

That’s why it’s not only important to have a good currency conversion app, it’s also essential to be able to track a currency’s rate across several months. To that end, I recently started looking for a solution on the Play Store, and fell in love with XE Currency. Read on for my full review.

This week we’ll take a more general approach and suggest various applications and services that save your content in the cloud and synchronize it transparently across devices and platforms. Whether you read articles and books on various phones and tablets, or need your notes and tasks sync’ed or simply want to keep track of your expenses across platforms, we’ve got the right apps for you!

Let’s face it: we can do pretty much anything with our phones these days — get our location and see what’s in the area, find people nearby, track packages, get traffic updates and flight updates. And that’s just the stuff we can do with Google Now! If we move beyond the scope of “built-in Android functionality,” there’s a whole other world of things we can do, including complete banking. Online. From our phones.

I found out about Simple, a completely online bank, a little over a year ago and could not wait to try it. In January, my wait was over when I got an invite to try their brand new Android app. Since this isn’t a review of the web app, I won’t go into too much detail about the sign-up process, but I will say that since this is completely online banking — there are no brick and mortar locations — it’s incredibly important that the mobile app works in conjuction with the web service to give you a comparable experience. So how does it stack up? Let’s take a look!

As a freelancer I’ve gotten into the habit of being very meticulous with my finances. Weekly, I go over my income, spending, and projected income and expenses for the following weeks. I like to paint a two week picture of what my bank accounts will look like.

While I use several tools for this, Mint is what I use for spending, previous data, and organization. If I ever need to check something while I’m out, well, luckily they have a freshly minted (teehee) Android App.

It’s that time of the year again when we all resolve – among other things – to keep the resolutions we make for ourselves every year. To be honest, I’ve been guilty of breaking new year’s resolutions within as little as a week and yet I take a shot at them every year. Exercising more, controlling what I eat, working less and playing more. We all say we want to do it, right? The problem is, it’s just really really hard to keep track of all of these things when we have so much else going on in our lives!

At least, that’s the excuse I’ve been giving myself for a while now.

This year will be different, though. I’m going to be a little proactive and try to use technology to my advantage in ensuring I don’t have that one excuse in 2012. So here is a roundup of over 30 Android Apps that let you track your goals – whatever the kind – and help make sure you stick with them as long as possible.

I hate banks and not just because they messed up much of the world’s economies. I hate banks because they smell weird, have boring leaflets to read in the queue, and send me thinly-veiled threatening letters every few weeks. That’s why I use mobile banking applications. Apps tell me my bank balance without skimming my debit card, let me transfer money without leaving my bed and don’t offer me cheap pens that waste in an instant.

PayPal, being basically the ‘Internet’s bank’ in all but name, have an Android application that I use regularly. Almost all of my income flows through PayPal and much of the stuff I buy is bought online using it. Over the few weeks I’ve been using the application I’ve found it to be a great addition to my online account with PayPal. Much like mobile banking I can check where I stand financially in an instant and can transfer my income to my bank account the minute it’s received instead of forgetting like I used to and wonder why it’s taking so long!

It’s far from being the perfect application however; and if any PayPal developers are reading this, I’ve a few suggestions.

Mobile phones have always had a way to keep track of your phone calls and text messages to some extent. In fact that was one of the key advantages of these phones when they started: the ability to display who was calling you and to keep a history of recent calls. As awesome as this sounded in the beginning, what a smartphone can do today far exceeds these capabilities, letting you use the phone to do things you could not have imagined just a few years ago.

Among the hundreds of thousands of things Android apps let you do today, a good few let you keep track of virtually any aspect of your life. From keeping track of virtually limitless incoming and outgoing calls and text messages, to maintaining a gym workout diary and managing your finances and health. The possibilities are endless. In this roundup, let’s look at a whole bunch of apps to do just that — and more.

I know that as a student, I like to know exactly how much money I’ve got in my account when I’m out and about. But having to log into your online banking portal via your browser can be a bit of a pain every time you want to check your financial affairs. Managing your finances, however, using your Android phone means you can update your account statements immediately giving you more control over your budgeting and a clearer overview of what you have and, more importantly, what you can afford to spend.

There is a wealth of personal financial software out there on the Market; these are my five personal favorites. (more…)

Who hasn’t grimaced upon reaching the end of the month and realizing they’ve spent more than anticipated? Have you ever found yourself with more money than you thought you had and do not know where that money came from? With Financisto these problems are solved in an easy, fast and simple way. (more…)